Musings and Photos about Life and Real Estate Development in Post-Industrial Brooklyn and New York City

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

More Modern Trouble in Williamsburg

We're not saying The Modern on N. 7th Street is better or worse than any other development in Brooklyn in terms of the way it's upsetting the neighbors, only that we're getting detailed information about the problems related to it. In the last several days, we've had water leaking from a hydrant that could become a bigger problem and the machine using that water causing a major issue with a sewer line. Now, we're back to the water itself, because it turns out the Department of Environmental Protection investigated the problem and decided there was none. In the meantime, the non-problem is getting worse, according to the email we got:

The Pictures you see were taken today. Last week the water was only coming out of a crack on my property. Now two holes on either side of the Hydrant have appeared with water coming out of them. Great Job DEP...The Modern site has broken a sewer main that caused all weekend construction...It’s ironic that the fine workers at the Modern broke the Sewer the same day DEP claimed to visit the hydrant that was providing water to the drilling machine that broke the Sewer. An ounce of prevention would have gone a long way. Meanwhile I hope someone who is competent from DEP will visit this site and fix this mess.

Of course, some sort of dramatic infrastructure failure, like an undermined sidewalk that collapses or water gushing uncontrollably from a ruptured pipe would make for a better story.